


make this place your home

by freudiancascade



Series: a softer red planet [4]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Other, adoption of a pet!, and bonus rita!, and then end up under house arrest in his lady's apartment for a couple weeks, domestic fluff with the barest threads of plot to justify it, dubious futuristic chemistry, juno saves the day in the background, jupeter, sometimes a thief has gotta fake his own death to avoid the consequences of his actions, they're just two fools in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-20 16:30:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17026170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudiancascade/pseuds/freudiancascade
Summary: Nureyev wrinkled his nose. "Generally, in this kind of situation with these sorts of people, I would leave the planet completely and never return. In this case, I'm rather fond of...some aspects of Mars. Which does mean I'll be thinking outside the box."Juno ground his teeth together. "I never thought I'd be saying this to you, but I think I want to be fully dressed for this conversation.""Understood, detective. I'll try to not get assassinated while you finish your shower."





	make this place your home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cranialaccessory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranialaccessory/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! Have some tooth-rotting fluff to celebrate the season!

* * *

**The Night Before**

Juno squelched over the threshold. Nureyev wrinkled his nose.

"Difficult day at the office, love?" the thief asked, trying to sound sympathetic even as he arched his spine to place a kiss to Juno's cheek without touching the rest of him.

"The highlight of my day was definitely the part where I got thrown into a river. And no, Nureyev, Mars still doesn't have any naturally occurring rivers. So if you excuse me for a bit, I'm going to go scrub everything. I'll be back once my skin stops crawling."

Nureyev drew back sharply, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve and leaving a streak of cobalt lipstick on the satin. "Juno --!? What happened?"

"Bright side, I think I thwarted a biochemical attack on the city's water supply."

"You.....think, Juno?"

"Well, if I failed, this is going to be the shortest shower in the history of Mars."

Juno vanished down the hallway; the water began to run.

Moments later, Peter knocked on the bathroom door. "Juno?"

"Nureyev, usually I'd love for you to join me in here, but I'm still scrubbing out raw sewage from between my toes so now might not be the best --"

"The biochemical attack you thwarted --" Peter began, and then cleared his throat. "Did it happen to involve a compound of chaetocin and lapisaeclic acid?"

The shower on the other side of the door stopped. A moment later Juno opened the door a crack, his dripping hair in his face and a towel wrapped around his waist. " _What did you do, Nureyev?_!"

"Well, I was  _hoping_ the answer would be  _no_."

"Nureyev --"

"Lapisaeclic acid by itself isn't necessarily a poison, Juno. It's valuable to anybody in my profession, as it can be turned into a solution that will quickly and cleanly dissolve corundum."

"So you can...destroy....your ill-gotten rubies and sapphires? Out of spite?"

" _And,_ " Nureyev continued pointedly, as though he hadn't been interrupted, "it's a simple enough chemical reaction to reverse once one is past the scrutiny of authorities, creating large gems that lack any identifying characteristics yet have a molecular structure that mimics naturally-occurring crystal."

"....So you know how the lapisaeclic acid got into the city." Juno let his head cave in against the doorframe. "Damn it all to  _hell_ , Nureyev, you brought it into Hyperion yourself."

He wrinkled his nose. "Unfortunately. It's rare, expensive, and moves primarily through underground networks. By bringing in a larger amount than I needed and delivering the surplus discreetly, I could obtain a vial of it for a job in --"

"I don't want to know the details, we have a rule, remember?"

"Fair enough. Now, seeing as it's landed in very dangerous hands  _who then had their plans foiled_ , I'm certain it's only a matter of time until begin severing their supply chain to keep investigators from reaching the source."

"So? Make that alias disappear," Juno said.

"They've seen my face." Nureyev wrinkled his nose. "Generally, in this kind of situation with these sorts of people, I would leave the planet completely and never return. In this case, I'm rather fond of... _some_ aspects of Mars _._  Which does mean I'll be thinking outside the box."

Juno ground his teeth together. "I never thought I'd be saying this to you, but I think I want to be fully dressed for this conversation."

"Understood, detective. I'll try to not get assassinated while you finish your shower."

* * *

**Day Zero**

And so it was storming the day that Peter Nureyev died. He wasn't Peter Nureyev at the time, of course, nor was he actually dead. But those details were -- as he phrased it himself -- a matter of semantics. Nobody bothered to pay assassins to hunt down an already-dead man.

Juno privately thought that the weather couldn't have been any more fitting if the thief had arranged it himself. He hadn't, of course, but it didn't seem to matter. On the day that Peter Nureyev had died for the first time, he'd proven himself capable of remaking the sky. It was almost poetic, now, for the atmosphere to cooperate and send him off with an appropriate level of melodrama.

At least, that's what Juno wanted to believe. It made sense that Peter Nureyev would be able to conjure up a good pathetic fallacy when he needed one.

Not that it made Juno's life any easier.

If his alibi hadn't been airtight, Juno was certain the HCPD would have found a way to bring him up on a murder charge. As it was, he didn't get home until shortly after midnight. His head ached, his whole body was bruised and sore from a dramatic feigned chase and an even more dramatic feigned conclusion, he felt numb, and his apartment was dark and still.

He made his way to the kitchen and blindly flicked on the hall light.

And there he was.

Peter Nureyev, alive and well, was sitting at Juno's kitchen table without a care in the world. He had his long fingers folded comfortably around the least chipped coffee mug that Juno owned. His red silk housecoat was open, chest bare; elegant silver jewellery gleamed against his skin in the sliver of light that came in through the door. 

Juno groaned. "How the hell do you even manage to make being a dead man look good?"

The thief grinned, his teeth glinting. "When I told you I'd see you on the other side, detective, I was hoping you'd enjoy the view as much as I do."

"I can't believe I'm going along with this," Juno sighed, dropping into the chair opposite him.

"Here. Drink up. Take a breath. We're both safe for the time being, Juno." Peter pressed a second steaming mug towards his partner, eyes alight with concern. Juno wasn't entirely certain what he was brewing, but he was fairly sure it hadn't come from anywhere near Mars. Given that the thief seemed to be in a constant competition with himself over how many anti-smuggling laws could be broken in a single suitcase, Juno was certain he wanted to know nothing more about it. He took a tentative sip instead.

"It's....not awful."

"Of course it's not. Now, if you can resist going to sleep for a little while longer, I'd love your assistance with planning a funeral. After that, we've got some terrorists to catch."

" _I've_  got some terrorists to catch," Juno corrected. " _You've_  got to do nothing but play dead until they're safely behind bars." 

* * *

 **Day One**  

In the morning Juno woke first, rolling out of bed to set the security system and adjust the tint of the windows until they acted as a two-way mirror, allowing light into the apartment without risking anybody outside catching a glimpse of Peter's presence. He made a pot of coffee for himself before pressing a warm mug of that strange tea into Peter's sleepy hand and a kiss to the thief's forehead. Then, Juno gathered his things to leave for the day, and Peter Nureyev was left alone.

The apartment felt different without the lady there. Peter had let himself in before, of course -- though always under the cover of darkness, with the promise of an imminent reunion, and with an eye more towards making a striking impression than towards making himself at home.

This was entirely different. He was alone in the daylight among Juno's things and expected to entertain himself. It was, if he dared to stop long enough to consider such a thing, one of the most profound acts of trust that Juno had ever casually thrown his way.

Which meant his usual favourite pastime, snooping, was absolutely out. He and Juno had been through multiple kinds of hell together, had seen each other through the flames and come out laughing on the other side. Peter loved his lady; more to the point, he  _trusted_ Juno in return. If there were any secrets lurking in the nooks and crannies of this apartment, Peter had zero desire to unearth them himself. Either Juno would share them, or he would not. They were still negotiating the terrain of their shared space; Peter knew he would never demand more than the lady would willingly give.

That, however, led to a problem: left to his own devices, Peter Nureyev had always been a man who bored easily.

By mid-afternoon he had cut and colored his hair, adding fetching flecks of cobalt that caught the light when he tossed his head. He had painted his nails with delicate azure sparkles to match. He had watched a Venetian soap opera, one of the few that had been syndicated in the Outer Rim long enough ago for it to be familiar to him now. He had pushed the coffee table aside to practice ballet in the middle of the living room, and had been unpleasantly surprised with how stiff and inflexible his muscles had become. It had only been a couple weeks since he had returned to Mars -- to Juno -- and allowed his morning routine to lapse in favor of spending those precious pre-dawn hours beneath the covers with his love. This was undeniably wonderful, though he was paying for it now as his joints popped and groaned through the poses. After that Peter had showered, played with his clothes for a time, settled on an outfit, and then prepared and eaten a light lunch. A stray cat was sitting on the windowsill, basking in the light; he carefully cracked the window open just far enough to slide the remainder of his lunch out onto the sill, and then settled back behind the safely tinted glass to watch it eat.

The cat finished it's meal and then left. Peter felt oddly bereft as it hopped down away from sight, and hoped it would return again tomorrow. 

* * *

  **Day Two**

“I, uh, appreciate that you tried to make dinner.”

"I was a sous chef at a five-star resort on Venus once," Nureyev admitted, crestfallen as he stirred the sad-looking soup with a despondent hand. "Though I've never had much opportunity to engage in culinary artistry beyond that week, I was hoping my inexperience wouldn’t be so…obvious."

Juno pulled a face, standing on his toes to reach into the very back of the cupboard. "Well, there's a little more to cooking than just stabbing vegetables until they stop moving, Nureyev."

"Martian cuisine may not have a wonderful reputation to begin with, Juno, but I'm still very worried about how active you seem to think your vegetation should be."

"Only the leafy greens. It's how you know they're fresh." Juno gave a small cry of triumph, unearthing the right vial of seasoning and shaking it into the pot with one hand as the other lifted the spoon from Nureyev's grasp. Peter didn't fight him, surrendering and moving aside. "Shoo, I'll fix it. What were you doing as a chef, anyways?"

"Truffles," he said.

"Really? I mean, I know some kinds are expensive, but you can lab grow just about anything, and --"

"No, no. There was a fishtank in the restaurant, a gloriously beautiful thing, and inside the tank there was a large selection of fresh fish to be prepared on demand. One of them was an octopus native to the gaseous oceans of Jupiter. They're nearly as smart as cats, you know, and some of them can live as long as a human. This particular octopus was named Truffles, it had been a family pet, and in the midst of an ugly divorce the manager would simply  _not_  relinquish it back to her ex-wife."

"You're joking. You went undercover as a chef to pull off an octopus heist."

"Darling, I never joke about a payday. Or about calamari. Though I must say I've never before -- or since -- heard of a breakup going so badly that one party stole and threatened to eat the other's pet. Have you?"

"Can't say I have, but I'm sure that's just a lack of imagination on my exes' parts and a lack of pets on mine."

* * *

Before following Nureyev to bed that night, Juno cracked the window and set the leftover soup out on the sill for the stray cat he'd taken to feeding, and then closed it again silently. Some things could only be salvaged so far.

* * *

 **Day Four**  

Silhouetted by the window, his outline cut into sharp edges against the slant of the closed blinds, Peter Nureyev stretched his lean and glorious body against the barre.

That was the first thing Juno noticed.

The second was that his living room, last time he checked, had not actually had a ballet barre installed along the wall closest to the window.

Nureyev was just finishing his workout, Juno could tell from the way the thief moved. Pose after pose flowed into long, careful stretches, cooling the man's body down. His legs kept him steady against the barre, his hands lifted above his head as he balanced on first one side, then the other. He had his eyes closed as he leaned forward into the graceful pose, his arms and spine forming a perfect arc. He held the stretch for a long moment -- despite the anchoring of his foot firm to the ground and his leg steady on the barre, Peter Nureyev looked weightless.

He was one of the most beautiful things Juno had ever seen, and the lady realized he was holding his breath.

And then Juno realized that, much as he didn't want to break the silence, he wanted even less for Nureyev to open his eyes and realize exactly how long he'd been standing there in awe. So he coughed under his breath and shuffled his feet, trying to make it sound as though he'd just entered the room.

"Oh, Juno. Thank you for waiting so long for me, darling. I'm almost done."

_Well, damn._

Peter dropped his arms finally, blinking his eyes open and meeting Juno's gaze with a grin. "Apologies for redecorating, detective. I've allowed my practice to lapse."

"I, uh, really don't mind. It's fine. If I need to go out onto the balcony, I’ll just take a running start and a pole vault.” 

* * *

 **Day Eight**  

“I think the stray cat is getting chubby,” Juno announced.

Nureyev frowned. “She shouldn’t be. I’ve only been feeding her reasonable amounts.”

"That would explain it,” Juno said, sighing as he wedged the window open to haul the cat over the windowsill and into the apartment. The creature didn’t resist, curling both front paws around his shoulders for stability. “Because so have I.”

"Oh," Nureyev said, crossing the room to perch on the kitchen chair beside them. “Does she have a name?”

“Not yet,” Juno said, holding the cat up for examination. She sniffed at the detective’s nose before blinking all six of her eyes. Her stinger was sharp, but her fur was a glossy orange and her demeanour was calm.

“She should,” the thief declared, lounging back against the chair. “I’ve been so awfully lonely, Juno, with you busy all day saving the city. I want to keep her.”

“In my apartment.”

“I’ve never had a pet before. Never stayed anywhere long enough to bother with one.”

Juno didn’t have a comeback for that. Instead, he rubbed the cat under the chin. "Maybe we should call her Greedy Brat," Juno relented. She leaned in with a purr.

Nureyev gasped. "No! She's a skilled con artist to have fooled us both, she deserves something  _elegant_."

Juno lifted an eyebrow. "Fancy Brat?"

"Fancy works nicely," Nureyev accepted, eyes sparkling with mirth. He scratched the cat's back, and it arched into his fingers. “See? I think she likes it.” 

* * *

 **Day Twelve**  

A furious pounding on the door and a voice calling out, “Open up!”

Nureyev dropped, crouching down out of the line of fire from the door and reaching for his knife. He debated crossing the room for his comms to call Juno, decided against it. If this was something he could handle himself, no point in worrying the lady. If it was not, well, best to not call Juno into the line of any more danger than he was already in.

“Ooh, alright, if you wanna be like that, well, I guess I’ll just have to come in, then! Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Okay, I’m coming!”

A key turned in the door. Peter exhaled.

“I’m here now, and you’re gonna have to explain exactly what you’re doing inside the boss’s -- oh, Mista Glass!”

"Hello, Rita.” Nureyev set the knife down on the counter, and leaned back casually against it.

“You!”

“I could _tell_ there was somebody in here, the security system keeps getting set all funny in the morning and lights kept going on and off and somebody even took in a delivery the other day and the Boss said _nothing_ about having guests staying over and so I thought, well, before makin’ him worry about it I’d better go investigate for myself!” The words came out in a rush, and the woman drew herself up as tall as her short frame would allow. “And here you are!”

“Well,” Nureyev began, dragging a hand through his hair. “I suppose I can tell you what’s going on, if you promise to be discreet about it.”

She puffed herself up proudly, “ _Discretion_ is my middle name, you know, Mista Steel says I’m as good at it as Mick Mercury, and if that ain’t saying something, I don’t know what is!”

"Well, the job Juno’s taken lately -- tracking down suppliers of lapisaeclic acid, as I'm sure you know -- is primarily to help me. It’s a Dark Matters affair. Very nasty business. I’m afraid I have to lay low until it’s been resolved, and he’s offered me his couch.”

"That’s a great story and all, but it’d be better if you weren’t lying to me! I know you’ve got nothing to do with Dark Matters at all, but if you’ve been here a couple weeks already and the boss hasn’t said nothin’ about it, it must mean --“ She gasped, and then squealed. “This is just like a stream, you two are having a _secret rendezvous_! Ooh, I can’t believe it, he didn’t tell me nothing about it, and I had to find out like -- wait, oh, who’s this?” Rita dropped to her knees, immediately clicking her fingers and releasing a sound a little like steam coming out of a teakettle as the cat rounded the corner to investigate the commotion. “Oh, she’s a darling!”

“We’ve been feeding her lately. Her name is Fancy.”

“ _Miz Fancy_!” Rita exclaimed. “Oh, ain’t she just the most precious little thing, you know, I’ve been telling the boss for years that he needs to get a pet so he isn’t alone when he’s moping all around the place, Mista Steel, I tell him, it is impossible to brood with a kitty all up in your -- oh my goodness, _she touched me_!”

Fancy was rubbing her head against the base of Rita’s outstretched palm. The secretary seemed to be seeing stars. “I’m even missing my soap for this, but now I don’t mind quite so much!” Rita gushed, rubbing the cat’s mandibles with an outstretched finger. “And it turns out you’re just having a _romance_ with Mista Steel? Oooh, I never!”

Peter gestured over his shoulder with an elegant hand, deciding that he would happily accept the company. “Well, your steam is likely not over yet. You’re more than welcome to join me and see how it ends.” 

* * *

Juno came home after dark, letting himself in quietly.

He surveyed the scene. An empty bottle of wine sat on the coffee table with the wrappings of several bags of snacks scattered around it. The television blared softly, some romantic comedy casting a blue light over the darkened room. Rita was asleep with her head in Peter’s lap, drooling a little onto his thigh; Peter snored lightly, his own head tipped back against the arm of the couch

He couldn’t tell what emotion welled inside him at the sight -- Rita and Peter Nureyev seemed to get along just fine, and that made him feel oddly warm and full.

And also worried him intensely. 

* * *

 **Day Fifteen**  

“It just occurred to me, Nureyev -- we have a pet now.” Juno swatted at Fancy with a half-hearted hand, trying to encourage the cat to get off the counter. "And you’re more than inventive enough to kidnap her. If this thing we're doing goes sour, remind me to enter her into witness protection."

Nureyev snorted, "Nonsense, Juno, how can I steal what's already partly mine?"

"You managed it with my heart, somehow." 

* * *

 **The Last Day**  

Peter Nureyev was incandescent, the neon on the billboards across the street glinting off the blue in his hair and the metal rim of his glasses, the bright points of him catching those smallest bouncings of light in the dark alleyway. The rain had turned the rest of him sleek and dark, and when he grinned it was all teeth. He watched as the man was taken away in handcuffs, the lady in a trench coat following in the vehicle behind. For a long moment after the sirens faded down the street, Nureyev hung from the fire escape with the slender fingers of one hand; then, he released and dropped down to the concrete alleyway below.

Juno would be busy at the police station for some time, handing over evidence and writing up statements and watching interrogations and putting this entire mess firmly in the rear-view mirror. The detective may not be affiliated with the force any longer, but he had done an exceptional job in closing this case. With the last of the gangsters who had seen Nureyev’s face safely beyond bars, Peter Nureyev (or, more accurately, Peter Nureyev’s many aliases) would be safe to walk the streets of Hyperion City once more.

 _That did sound good_ , Nureyev admitted to himself. To celebrate, he was going to take a _very_ long walk, indeed.

Though he might, if he was feeling up to the task, get back early enough to make dinner.

* * *

 **Epilogue**  

"What. Who -- where did you get that from? It’s _good_ , and I don’t trust it."

Peter lowered the spoon from his lover’s lips, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, darling. When was the last time you actually cooked in here without my prompting it? I cleaned out the fridge, too, one of us will have to run the garbage down after we eat.”

The sheer degree of domesticity in that statement, and the fact that it came from Nureyev’s painted crimson lips, broke something inside Juno’s brain with a ping that might have been a little bit like an elastic snapping. " _What_."

Nureyev returned his focus to the pot and beamed. Those long hours of solitary confinement, spent perusing cookbooks and recipe blogs, had finally paid off for him. Miz Fancy, perched on the counter beside him, flicked her tail expectantly. “You’ve already been fed,” Peter muttered, jabbing the spoon towards the new calendar on the counter that indicated full well the cat had eaten both breakfast and supper.

It read, _“Have we fed Miz Fancy Brat?”_ in Peter’s flowing black cursive above the date. “ _(DON’T TRUST HER, SHE IS A LYING CON ARTIST)”_ had been scribbled below it in Juno’s hand, bright red, and then, below that in Peter’s proud handwriting again, “ _She takes after her dad!”_

Juno, his stomach feeling warm both from love and the stew, moved into the kitchen and settled his hands at Peter’s waist. Peter arched backwards, graceful and fluid, to kiss the side of Juno’s throat.

They were both home, and it was exactly where they both wanted to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Edited 2019-03-10 for formatting.


End file.
